Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
The Quantum Foam Makes Me Roam
The heart-shaped locket dangled lazily from his left hand, sunlight glinting off it’s smooth surface as it twisted back and forth. Where am I? Who am I? Questions flew through his mind as he focused on the spinning locket. Slowly, he began to be aware of his surroundings. Feet, planted firmly on the ground. Describe your environment, he admonished himself. You know the drill. One question at a time. Where Am I? I am in a room. The room has cheap linoleum flooring. The walls are baby-shit green. I’m seated in a high-backed wooden chair. A name floated through his mind...Jackson. He understood without knowing that this was his name. And then, everything hit him all at once. Fuck. How many jumps had this been? What was the date? That was the most critical piece of information he needed as he tore the room apart looking for something, anything that would answer this. Had the math been right this time? Was his goal finally accomplished? Could he rest? The date on the newspaper he finally found told him that at least he had gotten the date right this time. Tennyson had said it best, “...once more into the breach, dear friends.”
By Jack Richey5 years ago in Fiction
Heart of Hope
I told myself I would make it. I’d been telling myself that for an unknown number of days since the explosions. I estimated it had been about a month and I was almost ready for the trek. With the sky so grey, it was impossible to sense the passage of time. Occasionally, a ray of muted yellow would fight its way through, along with a hint of blue, but mostly every day and night looked the same.
By Crystal McNeil5 years ago in Fiction
The Anniversary
The red marker dangled at the end of a strand of 550 cord, bouncing back and forth in the breeze of the recycled air. Jim Green picked up the marker and marked another day off the calendar. Today’s date was circled in the same red. Diagonally across the block was written “anniversary” in small, succinct letters.
By Jon Messenger5 years ago in Fiction
Generation P.
From birth, his world was plastic. When he toddled up to the windows, they were covered in a film of the stuff. When Grandmother took him for his little walks, his stroller was covered in a sticky, staticky curtain of polythene. In school, the children had clear plastic cubicles, so that when their wax and paper encapsulated crayons rolled to the edge of their desks, they no longer fell off.
By Anna Zagerson5 years ago in Fiction
Five Minutes
The patter of rain on my window was my alarm this morning, however that had not woken me up. It was the soreness instead that paraded through my body and my head. My eyes fluttered open to peer between the blinds that lay askew looking toward a false paradise against a sullen backdrop. The world boomed centuries after the sun screamed, I remember being told about the bodies our cities were built upon. I squeezed my hand tighter constricting my entirety into my sheets. The bite of silver leaving an impression on my hand as I pulled the chain from my palm. “Five minutes…” my throat felt rough and bare as I uttered those words.
By Kay.M.Raven5 years ago in Fiction
My Superman
Another screeching scream from a not too far distance. Another father or mother trying to avoid the fiery hailstorm coming down like rain. 2030 and Chicago is no more. What used to be a vibrant, exciting city with millions of Chicagoans is now a city filled with crumbled High Rise buildings. The EL is just a mass of melted tracks and the trains just disintegrated Steel. I am Mari, 15 and currently staying under the Dan Ryan bridge with my parents and my sister of 8 and baby brother of 2. My dad is one of the parents out there trying to find food and water for us. Of course there are no jobs to go to, no banks to withdraw money from. Only way to survive is looting from Costco or Jewels and pray they don't get caught by the Red Squad. They are the group of thugs who have taken over the city and make the lives of most of us more miserable with their demands for goods that we barely have. I hear my little brother laugh and turn around to watch him try to catch the rat that was scurrying away trying to also find crumbs to eat. I look at my mom who gives me a crooked smile. She tries to be strong and resilient for us but I can see the strain and the sadness on her dirt scorched face. Yes, one of the fiery balls got her one day as she went looking for food. I scratch on my arm which gets worse every day from the spider that bit me the other day. I try to keep it from my parents. There is nothing they can do, no ER to take me to. How did this happen? Why are we here? The diplomatic talks ended with North Korea and they made good on their threats. They finally nuked us. New York and Washington also got hit. There is no cellphone towers, so no cell phones. We don't know what is going on in the world now. What I miss most is chatting with my friends, especially my best friend Chelle. I hope theleveryone is okay . When the explosions hit, we were just about to have dinner. Everything shook, like an earthquake hit. Thinking that's what it was, my parents grabbed us and led us to the basement. The house started to breakdown right in front of us. Ceilings, walls crashing down. My brother and sister started screaming. We made it to the basement and huddled under my father's steel work bench. I don't know how long we stayed there. Everything around us was just a chaotic mess of rubble and a bunch of lumber in pieces. I literally thought we were dying that night. We couldn't breathe, we couldn't see anything. At one point, after what seemed days, we heard voices above us. They finally found us. We were extracted from what was once was our home. We were given oxygen, they tended our scratches and bruises. We didn't know at the time, but my father's arm had been broken on his way down to the basement. He is my Superman. As I looked around, as far as my eyes could see, there were no standing houses nowhere. I couldn't comprehend how something like this could happen. It seemed like I was in an Apocalypse movie. Unfortunately, pinching me wasn't going to help. There was nothing to recover. All our possessions, all our mementos were gone. My parents had bought our house before I was born, and just like that, seemed like someone just lit a match and poof, our home became ashes. For some reason, tears didn't come. I was in a daze or someone may say I was in shock. Paramedics asked if I was ok. Would anyone ever be again? I just nodded my head yes so they could leave me alone. I reached for my cellphone but I must have dropped it. Someone mentioned it wouldn't had mattered if I did since all the towers had been hit. A nice old lady put a water bottle in my hand and I opened it and guzzled it down. Water had never felt so good going down my throat. I searched for my family and once I seen them I just started laughing, uncontrollably. They were covered in dust from head to toe. Only thing not covered was their eyes. I'm sure I shouldn't be laughing from the looks I was receiving. I wished I had a mirror to see what I looked like, probably the same. This started another set of uncontrollable giggles. Since they didn't know how stable the area was, they took us to a temporary shelter where they provided us with a set of new clothes and we were able to shower. During the night, we were awaken by loud sirens and yelling. We had to leave right away. It was no longer safe. Where we are at, has been our home for a week. Am I angry? Of course. Do I want things to go back to the way they were before the nukes? Most definitely. My dad always said we do what we do with what we have. As I stop revering, I hear some shuffling feet coming towards me. It's my father. He has this huge smile on his face. I smile back wondering what is he happy about. I hope he was able to find my Cheetos, so love them.
By Damaris Abreu5 years ago in Fiction
Memory Maintenance
I cannot believe I am using my lunch break to write. All I do is write. People with more money do not come here. They do not need to use these second-rate Memo Booths, taking home their recordings to squirrel away in some drawer, to pick over when they feel lost. I imagine them curling up to their own stories at night. I wonder if they are shocked by themselves. I wonder if they are bored.
By Heather Griffis5 years ago in Fiction
IRONY
Myra wept, clutching a heart shaped locket to her breast. Tears had become a way of life for her these past weeks. Tears were her daily companions, especially the tears of irony. Irony that she was here on the ferry dock in Seattle while her family was on a small island ten miles away, so close, yet impossibly far. Irony that she was away from the home she and her husband had chosen as their “bug in” location. Irony that she had come to fill her trailer with supplies on the very day of the event.
By CJ Flannery5 years ago in Fiction
